Good reporting. Extraordinary science!

Comer Scholar Elena Wolchinsky on a conservation dive at the Great Barrier Reef with scientists from Reef Ecologic in Australia.

A Message from program director Abigail Foerstner

I partnered 2024-2025 Comer Scholars with scientists for a month at global field sites, working at the WWF gorilla reserve in Africa, participating in grassroots efforts to fix the water and power crises in Puerto Rico, documenting the impact of climate change on insects in the tropics - a barometer for all other life, and tracking climate impacts of the North Atlantic in Ireland and sub-Arctic regions. Comer Foundation funding makes these embedded reporting assignments possible - my deepest thanks! We also partnered with media sites for summer internships that will lead to continuing publication of science stories for general audiences in the coming year. Partners include The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Inside Climate News, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Reporter, NASA and other venues.

Good reporting. Extraordinary science! Let's build the audience action base through Medill’s science journalism specialization and Comer Scholars program.

Abigail Foerstner at the 2023 Conference.

Scientist Meredith Kelly speaks with Medill students at the 2024 Conference.

Amplifying environmental, climate change and science journalism

Comer Scholars at Medill develop compelling reporting expertise and careers to command attention and amplify environmental, climate change and science journalism in today’s media. Their Comer scholarships and reporting opportunities at the annual Comer Climate Conference and beyond give them the training and portfolios to excel professionally.

The Comer Family Foundation support has resulted in 77 graduate scholarship awards since 2010, approximately 445 stories published by Comer Scholars while at Medill, and a network of successful careers in environmental and science communications. The Scholars program is mobilizing a vital new generation of reporters in these fields. With this outstanding track record, Medill approved a proposal in 2017 to increase the numbers of Scholars with Medill matching scholarship funds. Six Comer Scholars selected from a highly competitive applicant roster will begin their Health, Environment and Science specialization this fall for the 2025-2026 academic year.

We greatly value the embedded reporting opportunities that Comer Foundation Fellows have made available to Medill Comer Scholars. Five students joined Aaron Putnam in Mongolia across several field seasons and another student joined him and George Denton in New Zealand. Students joined Brenda Hall and Tom Lowell during the two years of the Cordillera Darwin field work in Chile, Gordon Bromley’s field work near Galway, Ireland, and Mike Kaplan in field work in Chile. We are here to tell your stories from the conference, from the field, and from your new research during the year.